As most of you probably know, Romance Writers of America announced the finalists for the 2013 RITA awards, and Darius: Lord of Pleasures was among those selected in the historical category. (If you’d like to see all of the finalists, they’re here.) The historical category finalist list reads like a cross between my keeper shelf and my TBR pile, so I am very pleased to be in this company.

The winners are announced at RWA’s National Conference in July, and it’s an exciting, tense, fun evening for the finalists. The author, accompanied by the book’s editor, goes up to the microphone in a room full of 2000+ peers and industry professionals. A few minutes are allotted for the author’s comments, and a very pretty metal statuette is presented to each winner. Much applause, a few tears, a few drinks and many congratulations.

But wait a minute. The editor is there, but where is the publisher, the person who ultimately made the decision acquire that book rather any one of thousands of others? Where’s the copy editor, who caught more typos and wordos than Carter has liver pills, and where’s the proofreader who caught her fair share as well? Where’s the production editor, who kept the manuscript moving through an entire chocolate factory of transformations, from story to shelved book?

And let’s not forget about the Art Department, who came up with an eye-catching cover; book making, who somehow changed bytes into books; the sales folks who talked that book into retail outlets; the publicist, who led the cheers for the book as if her name were on the cover; the foreign sales agent who sold the book in Japan among other places; the formatters who have to tweak the file so it loads smoothly onto at least a half dozen different retail ebook platforms…. the booksellers, the bloggers and reviewers, the admin staff holding the universe together, the web geniuses who present the book so beautifully on the website…

Darius might be my story, but it’s not my book. It’s our book–all of us who put it together, read it, talked about it, boosted it on its way to this recognition. So, thanks to you, thanks to my book team, thanks to RWA. Thanks, thanks, thanks.

Newton’s quote comes to mind, though writing a romance novel is by no means an accomplishment comparable to his contributions to science: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

My story; our book. Who are your giants? The guy who keeps your car running? Your day care mom? Your kid’s counselor? Your sister-in-law? To five commenters, I’ll send signed copies of Darius: Lord of Pleasures.

I’ve just come from the 2013 gathering of the Romance Writers of America, one of several professional conferences I attend each year. On general principles, the notion of spending a week in a mid-city hotel, eating conference food, wearing conference shoes, and dealing with hordes of people ought not to appeal to me, but I’m already looking forward to next year’s gathering.

How can that be? My tolerance for noise is… well, I don’t have any, and this was an atrium hotel that looked to be at least 30 stories high. The bar was in one of the open-plan lobbies, and we ladies got loud, then louder still. My tolerance for gratuitous displays of emotion isn’t much greater, and yet, BOTH luncheon speakers moved us to tears, and that was just fine.

What’s different about this gathering? Yes, it’s a professional conference. People are pitching their books, meeting with potential agents and editors, negotiating deals, scarfing up workshop wisdom, and making connections with readers, and yet, it has the feel of a family reunion. I know of one pair of writers who’ve been critique partners for two years, and they met for the first time last week in Atlanta. That’s not unusual.

I arranged to meet a Facebook writing friend for breakfast, she brought her roommate, and we might well stay in touch on social media, get together at a subsequent conference, trade beta reads, or otherwise build on that small but enjoyable interaction.

Some of the appeal of the conference, though, has to do with the nature of writers. Whether we’re introverts or extroverts, we’re people who notice what happens in life. We notice setting, and we notice subtext–what’s not being said, what’s emotionally driving somebody but never acknowledged. In other words, we’re probably on the more perceptive end of the scale. At a gathering of writers, you can have all the space you need, but you won’t have to make much of an effort to connect, if connecting is what you want to do.

This group is also–generalization alert–mostly female, as in 99 percent female, at least. Certain dynamics that might afflict other gatherings are largely absent from this one.

And some of the credit has to go to RWA itself. I once heard Julia Quinn say, “You will never hurt your career by helping another author.” This might be engraved over the figurative door to the RWA office, because it represents Holy Writ to most romance authors. If you can do another author a good turn, it is your privilege to oblige. This ethic of professional collaboration might well be part of the reason romance is a $1.37 billion industry, and growing.

So I had a lovely week, despite being a warp nine, noise-intolerant, tactile-avoidant, introvert. I was with the right kind of people, focused on the right kind of agenda.

What sort of group do you enjoy meeting with? Does the task at hand make a difference? The setting? The membership?

To one commenter, I’ll send an audio version of “Once Upon a Tartan.”

I’m watching an early (1969) Masterpiece Theatre production titled, “The First Churchills,” which is a history of the First Duke of Marlborogh and his lady wife. The couple’s letters, diaries, and other preserved papers served as the basis of the series, which begins during the reign of Charles II.

A small digression here. Charles II was spirited out of England at the age of 21 (with a price on his head) and given sanctuary by his cousin Louis at the French court (among other places), while his poor papa, Charles I, became the only English monarch to die at the hands of his people. Oliver Cromwell became de facto dictator of England for about nine years, but upon Cromwell’s death, Charles was invited to resume the throne.

Charles II

After nine years of Puritanism and piety at swordpoint, a king who would grant amnesty to many who’d opposed him and his father, who enjoyed horse races, theater. tennis, and many of the pastimes Puritans had outlawed, was a welcome change of pace. He had his detractors, of course, Britain still being the grip of much religious intolerance, and Charles advocating for tolerance, but for all that, he is remembered as, “The Merry Monarch.”

John Wilmot, Earl of Richmond, and friend to the king, came up with the following couplet:

We have a pretty witty king, And whose word no man relies on,

He never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one”^[27]

to which Charles supposedly said “that’s true, for my words are my own, but my actions are those of my ministers”.

Oliver Cromwell

Charles was witty, tolerant, lusty (he acknowledged twelve bastards, nearly all of them inheriting titles or marrying titles), and able to laugh at himself and at court politics. He understood that gallantry, beauty, wit, poetry, recreation, and socializing are necessary if life isn’t to be unendurable. (And if Prince William takes the throne, he’ll be the first British monarch descended from Charles II, though the connection is matrilineal).

I like this guy. I like a reminder that music and theatre are fun, that nobody is getting out of this gig alive, that we need to get along with each other lest we all end up dead and deadly dull. I’m not so keen on a dozen illegitimate children, but Charles acknowledged every one, remained on good terms with his ladies, and his last thoughts were apparently of concern for his mistresses. “Let not poor Nellie starve” he begged his brother, referring to the actress, Nell Gwynn.

I write historical romance in part because I find history delightfully interesting. Charles also coped with the last devastating London plague, the Great Fire, various wars, and–I think this is important, too–was the first monarch to grant licenses to theaters that allowed women’s roles to be played by women, not boys. Imagine basing a novel on any one of those aspects of Charles’s reign….

What historical figure would you like to meet, to have for a friend? Why?

To one commenter, I’ll send an audio copy of “The Bridegroom Wore Plaid.”

My daughter called me up a few years ago, in the middle of one of those weeks when the spare went flat, the rent check bounced, and the professor sprang a pop quiz on the one assignment she had forgotten to read.

“Why doesn’t anybody tell you being a grown up is HARD?” she wailed, and my heart went out to her. As a child, adulthood looms as a golden land free of boiled asparagus, a place where we can stay up late every night, and never have to get on another school bus again. Time passes, and we see that staying up late isn’t all we dreamed it could be.

Being a published author is a little like growing up. Two years ago this month, my first book hit the shelves—a dream come true! And yet… I’ve learned a few things too, not all of them happy. Some of my lessons learned:

1)      Romance readers are among the kindest, most together people on the planet, and most romance authors are cut from the same cloth. We have our priorities straight, and for the most part, we treat each other decently. Yes, there are a few people, some of them reviewers, who must believe being snarky and narcissistic is some sort of contribution to the marketplace of ideas, but those people are by far in the minority, and they are not unique to the publishing industry.

2)      Luck has a lot to do with whether a writer succeeds commercially, the same as it affects the careers of doctors, ditch diggers, teachers, and everybody else trying to earn a living. One author’s book is chosen for some award, another’s gets into the hands of a mean reviewer on a mean day. When I realized that luck is not the exclusive plague of the fiction writer, writing became no more risky than lawyering, parenting or riding horses—all of which I’ve done with some success.

3)      Writing professionally is hard, not only because there are deadlines, reviews, and financial anxieties, but also because the manuscript I write becomes the property of an organization intent on maximizing the book’s commercial appeal, though how that’s done is still largely a mystery. In some ways, as an author, I have the least say over how the finished product is polished and packaged. In any survey of self-published authors, they do not cite increased revenue as their primary reason for turning away from traditional publishing, they cite an unwillingness to surrender artistic control as the reason they abandon the traditional publishing model. That’s significant.

4)      The final lesson learned is probably the most important: I love to write romance. I wasn’t sure I would, once the royalty checks, deadlines, and sales figures started showing up, but I do, I do, I do love to write. This is a Big Gift, because having a passion in this life is an inoculation against all manner of woes and miseries that a mere paycheck cannot cure.

I hope twenty years from now, I’m still writing romances, and still feeling mighty, mighty grateful to have that privilege.

What’s your passion? Is it the same one you had twenty years ago? Two years ago? To one commenter below, I’ll send a signed copy of “The Bridegroom Wore Plaid.”